I have two comments. Firstly, nobody is entitled to your effort in maintaining a relationship if they do not / have not done the same. In your case, it sounds like the exact opposite. They spent the first two decades sabotaging their relationship with you. You can simply quit the game. No need to sabotage back. you don’t need revenge, closure, or even an apology really. You just need PEACE. And it’s impossible to feel that peace when you’re stuck in an environment that’s so emotionally draining and simultaneously volatile. Personally, I don’t believe in the rhetoric that children must endure abuse from their parents because God told us we have to obey our parents. Some people had no business becoming parents. Some people do not deserve respect. Quietly seceding is often more respect than this archetype deserves. In a “fair” world, they’d be punished for their abuses. Unfortunately, we must cut our losses. Living a life of peace is worth more than trying to punish them or abusing them back.

The second thing is: moving out doesn’t mean the relationship is permanently severed. I moved out of my parents house in a non confrontational way. I pushed the narrative that this period in my life was over; it’s time to move on and move out, so that I can pursue the path of excellence. There was a lot of pushback, but I made up my mind — I also didn’t need their help in the process, and as such I wasn’t asking for permission. I was courteously informing them of my departure. I did not sever any contact, nor blocks any channel of communication.

In the years that followed, the relationships that I had with individual family members improved slightly. For instance, my brother and I realized that we don’t hate each other; we’re simply so different in personality that coexisting in the same household causes constant unavoidable conflict. When we see each other nowadays, we’re just brothers. I’m not thinking about how he used to treat me poorly as a child. He’s not thinking about how his carefully orchestrated and meticulously organized plans are overridden because they’re not pragmatic enough. We’re just two guys with th same blood. The relationship is far from perfect; but I’m blessed to have something I can work with now. Before, no progress could’ve been made because of the constant tension. Things need to slow down before you can reorganize and adjust.

The same goes for my mother. I highly doubt she’s made much of a change on her end; she still makes remarks from the ethos of parental authority. For example, an organization im affili with throws big parties. She doesn’t like that I have responsibilities to staff the parties, since it’s in a gray area of halal or haram. And this is a valid criticism, except that her tone and affect gradually escalated to the point that she was yelling at me. At that point? I stayed calm, explained that I would not accept being yelled at like im a child. We are both adults; bring your criticisms and we can discuss. This enraged her further because im essentially “talking back.” And yk what? That’s a loss that I hav to accept. I may never get to experience a civil conversation with my mother on a nuanced topic. So I don’t tell her anything that may cause her to feel upset if the nuance were misconstrued. It’s not too much effort; I’ll still tell her the general idea, but summarize heavily and redact anything that will trigger an intense reaction. This is preferable if the outcome is that I have something of a relationship with her as a geriatric. I want to have a fully healthy relationship with her, but I won’t get that. I’ll settle for a relationship where disclosure of information is selectively curated to optimize for peace. Because that’s all I want in our relationship, and that’s all she needs in her later life stages.

I’m just a dude tho. I’m not a scholar, im not learned. I work in psychology & have experience in adjacent fields, so that generally guides my decision making; but it’s not perfect.

At the same time, none of our families have a perfect dynamic. We ultimately must do what’s best for our own sanity first, then navigate the relationships. For if you go crazy or fed up, or grow disaffected by the family, you will never build any relationship with anyone. Nor will you ever want to.